What is the time of gentrification?

• In Event: 40821 - Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 5. Gentrification I

Abstract

Most sociologists and urban studies scholars cite Ruth Glass as introducing the term “gentrification” in her 1964 work. I have recently argued that using this citation without comment does us a disservice because it continues the assumption that gentrification at its core is a purely economic process (Bockman 2025). In that article, I took seriously the historical context of the concept and developed a historical, genealogical understanding of gentrification within its imperial and decolonizing context in London in the early 1960s. In this paper, I seek to apply this historical, genealogical understanding of gentrification beyond London because gentrification appeared both as concept and process in various former colonial urban fragments, like Boston’s Beacon Hill, Philadelphia’s Society Hill and Washington, DC’s Georgetown and Capitol Hill. Here, I am applying thoughts about gentrification in London to the case of Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. This paper will hopefully help me to further develop my understanding of gentrification as both an imperial process and a decolonizing concept for my current book project, Just One Block: Gentrification and the Many Worlds of Washington, DC. By asking what is the time of gentrification? I seek to understand its historical genesis, its historical time, and to forward an argument that this genesis is helpful for understanding the process.

Author

• Johanna Bockman, George Mason University